John Boehner Doesn’t Like It When Obama Quotes Mark Wahlberg

Obama used a line from 'The Departed' to zing House Republicans.

Speaker of the House John Boehner wasn’t amused when President Obama used a line from “The Departed” to describe his feelings about Boehner’s much-publicized lawsuit against the President.

On Thursday, Boehner revealed plans to sue Obama over his decision to delay implementation of the employer mandate of his health care law last year. In response, Obama made a speech in Austin, Texas, bemoaning Congress’s methods. In it, he said:

“I mean, think about that. You’re going to use taxpayer money to sue me for doing my job — while you don’t do your job. There’s a great movie called ‘The Departed’ — a little violent for kids. But there’s a scene in the movie where Mark Wahlberg — they’re on a stakeout and somehow the guy loses the guy that they’re tracking. And Wahlberg is all upset and yelling at the guy. And the guy looks up and he says, ‘Well, who are you?’ And Wahlberg says, ‘I’m the guy doing my job. You must be the other guy.’ Sometimes, I feel like saying to these guys, ‘I’m the guy doing my job. You must be the other guy.'”

Its a pretty good comeback in the movie. It’s also probably the only one that doesn’t have an F-bomb or a reference to maternal sex acts to appear in that film. (Certainly it is the cleanest thing to come out of Mark Wahlberg’s mouth.) No wonder, then, that Obama tried to harness it to his purposes. Boehner, though, scoffed. In a column for National Review, he wrote, “Rather than trawling through IMDB for partisan attack lines, President Obama ought to pick up the telephone and call the Senate Democratic leaders who are blocking nearly 40 House-passed bills to help our economy grow and create more American jobs.”

We imagine Obama resents the idea that he had to “trawl” through IMDB to come up with that line. (He has speechwriters for that, natch.) But maybe he can come up with another classic Hollywood zinger to put Boehner in his place. Something like, “You can’t handle the truth,” or “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” or “You’re a virgin who can’t drive.” Hey, we’re not the speechwriters here, but that last one is pretty good.